Teach Soap

hellew everyone and happy spring FINALLY!!

i'm taking a crack at doggie shampoo.

my client would like the following ingredients in the shampoo:

castille liquid soap (using the base so i have to hydrate it)
witch hazel
flax seed oil
essential oils

questions:

1 - the witch hazel:
a - is it considered a water ingredient
b - would i use it to hydrate the soap base?

2 - i plan to use optiphen as my preservative.
a - i've had it more than 1 year
b - would it be good to use for this formulation

thanks in advance!

_________________
~Shell

bumpety bump bump

_________________
~Shell

I don't make any shampoo for dogs from handmade soap as their skin's pH is very different from human skin. Syndet shampoo works better as it has a lower pH and less chance for irritation.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

All I can tell you about your questions is that witch hazel doesn't have the same properties as water; it is used in place of water when making bath bombes, because water will set off the fizzing reaction early, while witch hazel won't. However, I don't know if it's considered water based, or a water ingredient. I think it's considered an astringent, (but I'm not sure what an astringent is ) It comes from an herb.

But as far as doggy shampoo goes, apparently it needs to be made differently that human shampoo, like soapbuddy said, but I don't know all the details.

Yes, HAPPY SPRING FINALLY! OH, wait it was 30 degrees here the other night never mind.......

Good luck!

_________________
Olivia :)

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Olivia :)

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Are you sure your client meant witch hazel that you buy from the store? Witch hazel that you buy in the store is mostly alcohol and would be pretty drying for a dog. Or there is the herb which comes from the bark or leaves and there is the extract which can be a combination of both the leaves and bark. But I do not know if they are safe for animals.

I would totally skip the essential oils for a dog since their sense of smell is tens of thousands of times stronger than humans and having scent on them would be highly irritating and in a wash off product in small amounts, the EO's would serve no beneficial purpose at all.

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Genny

Thanks Everyone!

_________________
~Shell

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Olivia :)

SCI is a synthetic surfactant and a foaming agent. What that means it creates bubbles that clean. Syndet based shampoos have a lower pH as they do not use lye and oils to make the type of salt that handmade soap creates.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Sounds interesting; I'm going to do a little more research on it! Thanks!

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Olivia :)

I found an interesting article on this subject. http://www.naturalnews.com/022909_pet_h ... _oils.html

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Thanks, soapbuddy! I think I had actually found and scanned that article when I was researching using essential oils on animals. I also found the below website to be very informative and helpful, for anyone else interested.

http://www.oilyvet.com

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Olivia :)